WELCOME The Empire Farm is a 100-acre Soil Association certified organic farm on the edge of the Blackmore Vale, just south of Wincanton in Somerset. We keep poultry, pigs and a few sheep and grow fruit and veg. The farm is the venue of our Farm School where a wide range of butchery and smallholder courses take place in the Coach House and Walled Garden. Here you can learn how to set up a smallholding, keep pigs and poultry, butcher a pig or lamb, pluck a pheasant or skin a deer, discover the delights of charcuterie or join us for our Whole Hog Weekend.

COURSES AT EMPIRE FARM
As usual the programme of courses is a combination of butchery and smallholding. David Coldman is running the butchery courses and he is the main contact for all matters to do with butchery and charcuterie. Sally organises the smallholding courses. Bookings are now made via Eventbrite and Helm tickets. There is an button at the bottom of the course page to take you through to the bookings page.

SEE EMPIRE FARM ON COUNTRYFILE SPRING DIARIES
The film crew from Countryside Diaries spent a day at Empire Farm filming Paul Martin, Sally and two new smallholders. The programme was broadcast on 1st June 2018 Watch it here:

CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR CIDER MAKING TUTOR ALAN BERRY
Alan Berry of Blackmore Vale Cider teaches our cider making course. In 2016 at British Cider Championships at the Bath and West Show, he won Supreme Cider Champion for his medium cider, beating 600 other competitors! Read more here . Alan’s cider workshops take place in October this year, dates to follow.

COMING UP

HANDS-ON BUTCHERY
Due to demand, David is running our popular hands-on pork butchery course most months. Limited to four people, each person gets a side of pork to butcher, there is a short sausage-making session and then you get to take home all the pork to fill your freezer. A great day and amazing value. Find out more here. Also coming up the fab Whole Hog Weekend, two days during which a pig is butchered and made into a wonderful array of charcuterie products (pies, pates, sausages, bacon and much more) that you get to take home. Attendance essential if you raise your own pigs!

BESPOKE DAYS AND CONSULTANCY
Can’t find the right course or none of the dates suit? Our bespoke days may be the answer. We can arrange bespoke days on most topics on a date that suits you. Prices depend on the number of people attending and the topic covered. For more details contact the office (01963 371681 / sally @ empirefarm.co.uk)

BESPOKE BUTCHERY
Master butcher David Coldman offers a bespoke butchery service to local smallholders, you can even come along and watch. Make sure you get exactly what you want. Contact the office for further details.

HEN HOUSES

Our livestock housing is made from recycled plastic. Makes fighting red mite so much easier!

MEDIA
Check out our media mentions here. Sally writes regularly for Country Smallholding. Her latest articles in 2018 have covered biocontrol and the Oxford Real Farming Conference. She also writes for Home Farmer. Sally has been interviewed by BBC Radio Somerset and Bristol in 2016 and again in 2017. She was a speaker at the Royal Welsh Spring Festival in the Smallholder Centre, Smallholders’ Speakers Corner on Saturday 19 May 2018.

We were delighted to read that the Guardian named Empire Farm School in the top 5 butchery schools in the country. Our wild meats day was featured in Shooting Times in January 2015 and our butchery courses appeared in the Sunday Times in January 2016. In August 2016 our butchery courses featured in Waitrose Weekend. Further reviews have appeared in CountrySmallholding in 2017.

Sally blogs about the one acre plot, edibles and her visits to farms and gardens. Read Sally’s blog here

Follow Sally on twitter @Sally_Morgan

And finally, Sally’s latest book, Living on one acre or less was published by Green Books in 2016. If you come on any of our courses, you can buy a discounted copy, otherwise its available via Green Books and Amazon.